Will SF’s ambitious plan for teacher housing keep them...

1of3The Francis Scott Key Annex, a school district property where Judah Van Harken, 6 (left), and Rafael Trank, 4, are playing, is the site for the proposed 100 to 150 educator housing units.Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle

2of3The Francis Scott Key Annex on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif. City and school district officials are considering tearing down this site located at 1360 43rd Ave to build apartment units for teachers and other educators to help address the "housing crisis" in S.F. Currently, it's an open space used by families and others in the community.Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle

3of3London Horwood rides his skateboard at the Francis Scott Key Annex on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif. City and school district officials are considering tearing down this site located at 1360 43rd Ave to build apartment units for teachers and other educators to help address the "housing crisis" in S.F. Currently, it's an open space used by families and others in the community.Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle

The decision by San Francisco city and school officials to commit a plot of land and $44 million in public funds toward building affordable housing for teachers came after years of waffling and wavering. And it signaled a growing desire to help educators who make too much to qualify for low-income housing and not enough to afford skyrocketing city housing costs.

But even as leaders took a big step forward last week, they acknowledged that the ambitious and costly project that is expected to include 100 to 150 housing units on the city’s west side will do little to achieve its central goal — stemming the annual churn of teachers who leave to work in another city or in an entirely new career.

The proposed development, set for an old school site in the Outer Sunset, aims to house 60 to 90 teachers with up to 60 additional units for low-income teacher’s aides. Yet every year, up to 400 of the city’s 3,600 teachers leave the district, many for reasons that have nothing to do with high rent, research shows.

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Building housing is arguably among the most expensive tactics to try to retain teachers. The proposed apartments would cost more than $300,000 for each teacher or aide housed. And there are other options: supporting new educators, hiring skilled principals, paying more at the top end of the pay scale and forgiving student loans are all proven methods for keeping teachers, researchers say.

Still, officials believe the project is worth doing, and hope it will be just the first of many projects designed to make sure educators can work and live in the city.

The apartment project is a political crowd-pleaser in a city grappling with surging rents, evictions, gentrification, and countless stories of teachers living in walk-in closets, crowding into studio apartments or commuting more than an hour to work.

“I definitely think one project is not going to be how we make a dent in teacher retention,” said school board President Shamann Walton. “But until we get this first project done, we can’t realize the full potential of building affordable housing for educators.”

And, Walton said, “It’s better to have someone commuting from inside of San Francisco than anywhere outside of San Francisco.”

In fact, the vast majority of San Francisco teachers already do that. Despite rising costs, the city has one of the Bay Area’s highest rates of teachers residing within their district. About 73 percent live in the city, a percentage that hasn’t changed in many years.

By comparison, just over half of Alameda and Oakland teachers live in their respective districts, and about 40 percent of Castro Valley and Fremont teachers live in theirs. Just under 12 percent of Piedmont teachers live in that city.

Many Bay Area districts, including Alameda, Newark and Oakland, are looking at building housing to entice teachers to stay put. San Francisco, however, is ahead of the curve.

A week ago, the school board unanimously voted to enter into an agreement with Mayor Ed Lee’s Office of Housing and Community Development to pursue construction of the educator apartments. City officials said it will take them two years to identify a developer, design the complex and win environmental approval — and, if all goes well, another 18 months to build it.

In the meantime, they will need to respond to neighbors concerned about parking and other issues, while also setting policy on how long teachers will be allowed to live in the complex; what to do if someone becomes disabled, is fired or quits; and whether new teachers or only tenured ones will be eligible.

The question they may not be able to answer for more than a decade is whether the project will help schools hold onto teachers. The district and city plan to track those who live in the apartments, including after their leases are up, to study the impact.

For teachers whose leases end, city officials plan to provide financial counseling and other support toward buying a home or continuing to rent, but teacher income will likely still be well below the city’s median.

“We are fully aware that this won’t be perfect; there won’t be 100 percent teacher retention for the long term,” said Kate Hartley, deputy director of the mayor’s housing and development office. “But we want to try something. ... If it doesn’t work we’ll try something else.”

Cities looking to provide such housing have pointed to Santa Clara Unified, which built 70 units for teachers in two phases over the last 15 years. Now there’s a constant waiting list. But the district isn’t tracking teacher retention and has no data on the impact of the housing, said spokeswoman Jennifer Dericco.

In San Francisco, the project would offer one- to three-bedroom apartments to be built on the Francis Scott Key Annex on 43rd Avenue, between Irving and Judah streets. The site currently hosts a community garden, skate park and playground, as well as nonprofit and district offices.

Teachers who qualify based on family income would pay about $3,100 per month for two bedrooms — roughly $1,000 less than the citywide average — and for the same size apartment, teacher’s aides would pay about $1,300.

The city won’t be able to limit how long aides can live in the units or require them to move out if they switch careers, due to federal rules on subsidized low-income housing, Hartley said. That means turnover in the apartments could be rare.

A Stanford University poll obtained by The Chronicle found that San Francisco teachers are nearly evenly split on the idea of living in educator-only housing. About a third of those in the survey of 2,000 teachers “definitely” would want to reside in such a setting, while 28 percent said they would “definitely not.” The rest fell in between, with a majority leaning positive.

The housing support service most popular in the poll was rental assistance: 60 percent of teachers ranked it a top option, compared with 48 percent who preferred a housing development.

Teacher Evelyn Martinez, who has been renting in San Francisco for 20 years, said she would contemplate living in a teacher complex.

“It’s something I would consider,” said the Cleveland Elementary bilingual support teacher. “My rent keeps going higher and higher.”

Her dream, though, is to buy a home. “What would also be helpful is getting higher pay,” she said, adding, “I appreciate that they’re at least trying something.”

While city, district and teachers union officials frequently cite housing as a major reason teachers leave the district, they say that’s primarily based on anecdotes, with little hard data to back up the belief.

“It is not a leap to say the cost of housing is a major factor in keeping educators in the city,” said Lita Blanc, president of the United Educators of San Francisco.

The district does know that aside from voluntary departures, some 60 newly credentialed teachers, on average, are let go by San Francisco principals each year for sub-par performance, often indicating they lacked preparation or support to do the job.

Among those who choose to leave, national and statewide research indicates that lack of preparation, along with working conditions, personal reasons and school leadership are big factors, said Desiree Carver-Thomas, research and policy associate at the Learning Policy Institute, a Palo Alto nonprofit.

“Teachers have to want to stay and teach not just because they can afford to,” she said, “but because they’re in an environment that supports them, their professional growth and their students.”

In San Francisco, the district’s teacher residency program, which trains and supports new teachers as they earn their credentials, has an 80 percent retention rate over five years, compared with 38 percent for teachers overall, Carver-Thomas said.

San Francisco school officials say they are focusing on several tactics other than housing to retain teachers, including increased salaries, support for new teachers and small class sizes.

Tara Kini, a parent and former teacher in the city, agreed that the district must take a multipronged approach to keeping teachers.

“From a personal experience, the level of support from your school principal and the ability to meet with and collaborate with your peers are incredibly important,” she said, as well as the “day-to-day reality of being able to afford your rent.”

Her son’s teacher at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 school shares a studio apartment with her boyfriend and his brother, said Kini, who is the Learning Policy Institute’s director of state policy. Her daughter’s teacher lives in a walk-in closet.

“I’m curious to know how common that is,” she said. “People are making a lot of compromises in their living situations because of the cost of housing.”

Rebecca Bradley, a librarian at Cleveland Elementary, said her pay allows her to rent only a room in a house. She wants the city or district to initiate a rent-to-a-teacher campaign — perhaps an online app — that would connect landlords or people with in-law units with teachers who need housing.

Bret Harte Elementary Principal Jeremy Hilinski said he likes the idea of teacher housing, even though the city has selected a site far from his Bayview school.

“I don’t think it’s perfect and I think we have a lot of teachers who need housing, but it’s a start,” Hilinski said. “I don’t think it’s going to solve all of our problems, but it’s a good symbolic indicator that it’s important.”

Under current rental rates, a veteran teacher looking for housing would need to spend nearly 70 percent of his or her income on a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. The following is what city educators now spend on rent, according to a 2017 survey of 2,000 teachers.

35 percent of teachers spend less than 30 percent of income on rent

32 percent spend between 30 and 39 percent

22.3 percent spend more than 40 percent (14.7 spend more than 50 percent)

Jill Tucker has covered education in California for 18 years, writing stories that range from issues facing Bay Area schools districts to broader national policy debates. Her work has generated changes to state law and spurred political and community action to address local needs.

She is a frequent guest on KQED’s “Newroom" television show and "Forum" radio show. A Bay Area native, Jill earned a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder and a bachelor’s degree from the UC Santa Barbara. In between, she spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in Cape Verde, West Africa.